men now rode a group of scouts
led by a Canadian quartermaster
sergeant named Richard Surby.
According to Surby, he approached
his superior, Lt. Col. William
Blackburn, executive officer of the
7th Illinois, with the idea of “hav-
ing some scouts in the advance
dressed in citizens clothes.” Black-
burn discussed the idea with Gri-
erson, who approved it and gave
Surby permission to form his
scouts. Eight men from the 7th Illi-
nois were dressed as irregular Con-
federates. The scouts, nicknamed
“the Butternut Guerrillas,” would
prove quite useful to Grierson.
Passing through Starkville on
April 21, the raiders seized Confed-
erate mail and destroyed supplies.
Grierson was disturbed to learn that
the townspeople knew the raiders
were coming. As a violent storm
flashed and crashed overhead, the
bluejackets pushed south from
Starkville through swamps where
horses struggled through belly-deep
mud and water. Finding some high
ground, the raiders stopped for the
night. Graham’s 1st Battalion, how-
ever, got little rest. Grierson earlier
had received information from a slave
about a nearby tannery, and he sent Gra-
ham’s force to destroy it.
Concerned that the Confederates had
been telegraphed of his force passing
through Starkville, Grierson decided to
send out another diversionary force, Com-
pany B of the 7th Illinois. Commanded by
Captain Henry Forbes, the company was
given the dangerous mission of riding fast
to Macon and pulling up the Mobile &
Ohio Railroad tracks, ripping down tele-
graph wires, and drawing as much Con-
federate attention as it could.
Separating from the main column,
Forbes and Company B rode east for 30
miles. That evening Forbes halted his com-
pany at a plantation three miles from
Macon. Around 9 PM, pickets captured a
Confederate scout who revealed that a
trainload of infantry was expected to arrivethat night. Forbes’ own scouts soon heard
the whistle of an engine, leading the captain
to believe that enemy reinforcements were
arriving in town. Taking Macon was now
out of the question. Forbes felt they had
done what they came for; he would later
report, “We kept all eyes on the Mobile &
Ohio Railroad.”
He was right to do so—Pemberton knew
now that 2,000 Union cavalrymen were
raiding deep into his district, but he believed
the Mobile & Ohio was their main objec-tive. He sent Loring to Meridian to
take command of all troops in the
area and run down the enemy
raiders. Troops went quickly by rail
to Macon, where Pemberton had
received reports of a large enemy
force approaching. This was Forbes’
company.
Grierson, after a rugged journey
through deep mud and water, was
nearing Louisville. He ordered Major
Mathew Starr to ride ahead with a
battalion of the 6th Illinois and
secure the town. When Starr’s men
galloped into Louisville they found
the streets empty and the buildings
closed—the townspeople had been
warned of the Yankees’ approach.
After the main column passed
through town, Grierson left Gra-
ham’s force behind for an hour to
make sure no one left with news of
the raiders. The column then pushed
on through more swamps before
camping around midnight at another
plantation. It had been a rugged 50-
mile journey, but their objective now
lay only 40 miles away.
On the morning of April 23, the
Butternut Guerrillas galloped ahead
of the main column with orders to
capture a key bridge over the flooded
Pearl River. A couple of miles from the
bridge the scouts chanced upon an elderly
man who told them the bridge was held
by a guard of five men, including his son,
and that they had ripped up some planks
in the center of the bridge and placed
incendiaries in the openings. The old man
reluctantly agreed to help after he was
warned that the raiders would destroy his
property if the bridge was damaged.
The old man talked his son and the
guards into galloping away, leaving the
bridge in the scouts’ hands. After replacing
the missing planks, Surby left one scout to
wait for the main column and led the rest
of his men after the fleeing guards, who he
worried would spread word of the Union
advance. As he neared Philadelphia, Surby
spotted armed men drawn up in a line
across the road. He immediately requestedABOVE: Grierson’s raid began at the Union cavalry
depot in La Grange, Tennessee, on April 17. The
primary target was the crossroads depot at New-
town Station, where rail lines transected in all
four directions. OPPOSITE: In this Harper’s
Weeklyengraving, Grierson’s industrious raiders
tear up tracks and burn a rail depot in Mississippi
as part of the plan to disrupt Southern Railroad
service to the besieged city of Vicksburg.Map © 2015 Philip Schwartzberg, Meridian Mapping, Minneapolis, MNCWQ-EW16 Griersons Raid *missing map_Layout 1 10/23/15 11:00 AM Page 85